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O’Melveny announced today that it has become the first US law firm to adopt two cutting-edge technologies that address critical diversity and inclusion issues: pymetrics will enhance the firm’s ability to assess candidates based on their potential, not pedigree; Werk will help the firm design flexibility options that maximize employee satisfaction, engagement, productivity, and retention.

Starting this month, O’Melveny will roll out a revolutionary software tool developed by pymetrics, a New York-based company that uses neuroscience and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to help global clients such as Unilever, Accenture, and LinkedIn make their recruitment processes as effective, accurate, and unbiased as possible.

Founded by Harvard/MIT-trained neuroscientists, pymetrics assess job applicants across a range of cognitive, social, and emotional traits and then algorithmically recommends the best-suited candidates to companies. To build its own unique algorithm, O’Melveny is asking its associates to play pymetrics’ neuroscience-based games. The games measure traits such as effort, attention, planning, memory, and flexibility, to name a few. After generating the results, pymetrics will build a success profile for the firm and then audit the algorithm to remove any potential gender, racial, or ethnic bias.

When applicants play the pymetrics games, their results will be compared to the O’Melveny algorithm, helping the firm identify and select candidates with the strongest potential for success. By producing unbiased assessments of candidates’ cognitive and emotional traits, this tool levels the playing field, minimizing the influence of gender, race, and socioeconomic status in hiring decisions. Some leading pymetrics clients have reported dramatic improvements in the efficiency of their recruiting efforts, the diversity of their candidates, and the retention and performance of their employees.

“O’Melveny is deeply committed to increasing diversity at the firm. Yet we have not been satisfied with the number of diverse candidates we have been seeing even as we have worked to significantly increase underrepresented groups at the firm,” said Darin Snyder, O’Melveny’s Diversity and Inclusion Partner. “We believe pymetrics will improve our ability to connect with and recruit a broader array of candidates with the potential to succeed at O’Melveny.”

To introduce pymetrics to the law schools where the firm conducts on-campus recruiting, O’Melveny will be hosting a series of calls with the schools’ Career Services teams in December. The firm will also reach out to additional law schools and offer many more students the opportunity to play the pymetrics games and apply to O’Melveny. Starting in January, O’Melveny will make pymetrics available to first-year law students (1Ls) who are interested in applying to the firm.

O’Melveny is also announcing today an innovative approach to addressing its lawyers’ work/life integration.

In collaboration with New York-based startup Werk, O’Melveny will be introducing a first-of-its-kind assessment tool that helps companies better understand and respond to their employees’ flexibility needs. All of the firm’s US attorneys will have access to Werk’s people analytics platform.

Werk measures flex-work needs versus “wants” and uses proprietary benchmark data to quantify the degree of an employee’s flexibility needs. Werk then identifies the gap between actual flexibility needs and perceived access to those flexibility types, providing insights that will help O’Melveny design responsive and effective flexibility programs.

“O’Melveny has long been a leader in flexible work, and now we are ready to make our existing programs even stronger with a data-first approach,” said Michelle Egan, the firm’s managing director for talent development. “Through Werk, we will gain the insights we need to leverage flexibility not just to engage and retain our existing attorneys, but to attract a new generation of talent.”

According to Werk, half of employees without access to flexibility are planning to leave their jobs in the next six months. Using Werk’s methodology, companies can find out which types of flexibility are driving the biggest need within their organizations, and see how well they are meeting those demands.